Separatist militants in Pakistan’s Baluchistan Province have claimed responsibility for killing six coal-mine workers as violence intensifies in the resource-rich province.
Nuclear-armed Pakistan is already grappling with intensifying Islamist militant violence while struggling to revive a flagging economy.
A surge of separatist violence in Baluchistan will compound fears for the stability of the US ally.
PHOTO: AFP
Bullet-ridden bodies of six coal-mine workers were found in mountains near Marwar, 35km east of the provincial capital, Quetta, on Saturday, a senior police officer said.
“Their hands and feet were bound with rope and they were shot in the head,” police officer Wazir Khan Nasir said yesterday.
The six, none of whom was from Baluchistan, were abducted outside their company offices in Marwar on Friday.
Baluch nationalists have for decades campaigned for greater autonomy and control of the province’s abundant natural gas and mineral resources, which they say are unfairly exploited to the benefit of other parts of the country.
Baluch militants have also waged a low-level insurgency, at times targeting gas and mining infrastructure as well as “outsiders” from other parts of Pakistan.
A spokesman for the Baluchistan Liberation Army militant group telephoned a press club in Quetta on Saturday to claim responsibility for killing the six workers, saying it was in retaliation for the killing and kidnapping of Baluch people.
“If the military keeps on killing and abducting our people, such things will continue,” spokesman Meerak Baluch was quoted by a journalist as saying.
Tension has surged in the province of bleak deserts and mountains since Thursday, when three Baluch political leaders were found shot dead.
Several people were killed in rioting that broke out in Quetta and other towns after the discovery of the three, who were abducted by unknown men days earlier.
Their supporters said they were taken away by security men.
The provincial government said the killing of the three was an act of terrorism and ordered an inquiry. The military blamed an “anti-state element” bent on undermining reconciliation.
The US condemned the killing of the three men, saying one of them had recently helped in the release of a kidnapped American UN official. The UN expressed its serious concern and called for an immediate investigation.
Rights group Amnesty International also urged authorities to investigate the killing of the three, adding the government had failed to investigate an estimated 800 enforced disappearances in Baluchistan over the past two years.
Baluchistan borders Afghanistan and Iran and is Pakistan’s biggest province in terms of area, but its population is the smallest and poorest.
Taliban Islamist militants fighting in Afghanistan also operate out of Baluchistan, but have no links with the largely secular nationalists.
There have been were no reports of disruptions at gas fields over recent days.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
DITCH TACTICS: Kenyan officers were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch suspected to have been deliberately dug by Haitian gang members A Kenyan policeman deployed in Haiti has gone missing after violent gangs attacked a group of officers on a rescue mission, a UN-backed multinational security mission said in a statement yesterday. The Kenyan officers on Tuesday were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch “suspected to have been deliberately dug by gangs,” the statement said, adding that “specialized teams have been deployed” to search for the missing officer. Local media outlets in Haiti reported that the officer had been killed and videos of a lifeless man clothed in Kenyan uniform were shared on social media. Gang violence has left
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including